New York police were searching today for a man who pushed a 61-year-old man onto subway tracks, where he was killed by a train. Wai Kuen Kwok, 61, was standing with his wife and waiting for a downtown train at a Bronx subway station this morning, when he was pushed off the platform, according to the New York Police Department. Police said Kwok was killed this morning after being pushed into the path of an oncoming train at 8:44 a.m. Police confirmed that Kwok was pushed as he was waiting with his wife for a downtown train at the East...

So you want to write about poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and general misery in America. Let me give you some advice, and I'll cut right to the chase and be as blunt as possible. First, consider your audience. It’s white people. If you are trying to tell a sob story that ends in “we need more social services” most minorities are already on your side and the ones that aren’t have their own sources of information. You’re talking to mainstream white America, so you need to tailor your story to them. Start with a young white couple who has fallen on...

I have been a Freeper for 12 years and a teacher for 10. I work in Los Angeles, in a public school, and I teach English. I want to say something about Common Core, although my observations will be strictly limited to my particular domain: English. I cannot comment on the Math portion. I will begin bluntly: I do not understand the conservative outcry about Common Core. Perhaps it’s only because I teach in California, but to me it is an improvement, at least in some ways. If you aren’t a teacher (and most conservatives aren’t, which is a pity)...

Well, if the Zimmerman trial has shown us nothing else, it has shown us what would have happened if Nicole Simpson or Ronald Goldman had had access to a gun the day OJ Simpson killed them. And let's not pretend he didn't. What's more, let's not pretend that those black Americans who did celebrate with jubilation when OJ walked didn't know full well he was a killer. Many admitted it openly then, and still do today. But that was the last time a trial held such attention for such obviously racial reasons. The celebrations when OJ got away with murder...

Ten years ago, a white man from South Africa, one Kim du Toit, wrote an essay titled “Let Africa Sink.” It’s rather famous in the blogosphere in a sort of underground way. His thesis was essentially, we (Western Civilization) cannot save Africa. Life is cheap there. The mortality rate is a result of a perfect storm of natural disaster, human savagery, and unwitting complicity by Europeans that worsens the situation every time they try to help. As a result, death is treated more casually by Africans than by Westerners. I, and I suspect most Africans, am completely inured to reports...

A woman grieving the shooting deaths of her son and granddaughter is now trying to come to grips with news that one of the accused is a longtime family friend whom the 7-year-old victim affectionately called "Uncle Mike." Michael Bell, 21, played high school football with Jeremy Crane and spent many weekends at the Crane family's ranch-style home in suburban Indianapolis. On Wednesday, Bell and another man were formally charged in the deaths of Crane, 21, and his niece, Kyleigh Crane. Cathy Crane, Jeremy's mother and Kyleigh's grandmother, found the bodies Dec. 12 after returning home from work. She said...

Watching the OWS protestors, I realize that everything I need to know about their mentality, I learned from a Marxist anthropology professor ten years ago. I’ll call him Chomsky (it’s not the real Chomsky. Just a knock-off version. Probably made in China.) My Chomsky believed in what he called “equality of outcome.” Like the protestors, he was very upset that some people made “too much” and others had “not enough.” He wanted everyone to have food, shelter, and clothing. That’s understandable. But it wasn’t all. He wanted them to have education and health care, job counseling, and transportation. Dental. Vision....

I met a typical Democrat on the bus last night. Here’s a little context: I live and work in Los Angeles and am a woman in my mid-40s. I’m about as attractive as a woman in her mid-40s can be when she cuts her own hair and needs to lose about 10lbs. In other words, I’m okay enough. I wear skirts and make-up. But I’d had a long day, so I doubt I was in top form. I got on the crowded bus downtown, and a heavy-set black man in his 60s offered me the seat next to him. (No,...

NEW YORK -- The wife of an imam planning an Islamic community center and mosque near the World Trade Center site said Sunday that she and her husband have received death threats. "For the record, my life is under threat," Daisy Khan said during a town hall debate on Islam broadcast on ABC's "This Week" news program. Khan, who's married to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, said her husband's life also is under threat but, "We do not walk around with bodyguards because we love this country." Chief police spokesman Paul Browne confirmed that Khan had told authorities about the telephone...

So the NRSC has decided not to support Tea Party candidates even though they win the primaries? Okay. I say we send them a message, and it's a very easy one. Go to your kitchen and grab a bag of tea. You know, the single-serving ones you put in a cup. Slip it into an envelope. Address the envelope to: National Republican Senatorial Committee Ronald Reagan Republican Center 425 2nd Street NE Washington, DC 20002 Slap a stamp on that baby and drop it in the mail. Takes five minutes and ought to get the point across.

I'm hearing a lot of voices rise up to declare that if you are opposed to the Victory Mosque at Ground Zero, if you are unhappy with the rising number of muslims in America, if you are wary at the thought of Sharia Law gaining a foothold in our court system, you are Islamophobic. You know what? I'll just go ahead and go on the record as being OFFICIALLY ISLAMOPHOBIC. Yes. Yes, I am scared of those psychopaths. Okay? You got me. I'm busted. I'm scared of them. I'm scared of people who stone 13 year old rape victims to...

So I wanted to see a movie at the shiny, sterile Century City mall in West L.A., and I had to decide. What should I see, the delicate, introspective, self-affirming, inner journey EAT, PRAY, LOVE, or some stupid shoot-em-up with a bunch of testosterone poisoned trigger happy gun slingers. What are you high? I'm going for the gun-slingers, mang!I liked this movie! Okay, it's not Schindler's List, and here's a quick spoiler: Good guys win. Bad guys die. Actually, that's the whole review.Nah, but it was cool. Sylvester Stallone seems like nice guy for a mercenary. Actually, a little too...

As the battle over gay marriage, and more specifically, Prop 8 in California, rages on, we hear more and more about the higher level of sophistication in other countries. Gay marriage is already accepted in many different parts of the world, they say. We are the lag-behinds, the bumpkins, the ones who just can't get with the program.Wondering if this was true, I began researching the attitudes and laws concerning homosexuality in other countries. Whilst on this quest, I came across an interesting factoid about, of all places, Iran. Yes, Iran. Apparently in Iran, they DO HAVE a ceremony that...

It's actually what I witnessed, not what I experienced. It starts with a long-standing debate I have with a very dear friend who is a little left of center. She maintains that we must have government-subsidized health care or her mother, frankly, would die. She cannot afford her mother's health bills.I've never really understood this, because her mother lives with her and she earns a great deal of money. Twice what I earn, and I am an educated professional. How expensive can it be to keep alive a 73 year old diabetic who has chronic lung inflammation, nerve damage from...

Before we begin: a disclaimer. I do not like Obama. I do not like the Muslim world. Having said that... I am suddenly considering the possibility that this NASA outreach is not an evil plot to destroy America. It occurs to me that Obama is doing something ... not necessarily wrong. Look, we on the conservative side have long held that the hatred the Muslim world bears toward us is part jealousy. They know they are not a cultural force in this world anymore. They have seen the moment of their greatness flicker (several hundred years ago.) As one pundit...

Ambassador Obama 7/31/08 I cannot get a straight answer from any of my colleagues. Why exactly do they like Obama? No, seriously. Specifically. What's so great? I mean, I get that he's tall, slender, handsome, and has a great smile... but what is his specific appeal? Beyond looks and words, I mean. Beyond what he symbolizes (exoneration from white guilt, and a gesture toward a world that hates America even when we're saving their butts and pouring financial aid down their throats.) What exactly do they think Obama will do? End war? Well, no, he's said recently that he'd intensify...

This was just forwarded to me by my best friend. We both live in Los Angeles. She writes, My friend Richard took this pic this morning, thought you two would appreciate. Just another peaceful rally in downtown L.A.

This was just forwarded to me by my best friend. We both live in Los Angeles. She writes, My friend Richard took this pic this morning, thought you two would appreciate. Just another peaceful rally in downtown L.A.

Yes, you read right. I cannot wait for the Value-Added Tax. I can't wait for the prices of electronics to jump 20% or more. I can't wait for liquor and cigarettes to turn into luxuries. I'm looking forward to the kind of shock and awe that only a smack in the face by reality can bring. Nearly half the population of this country is a pack of no-load, can't-carry-their-weight and don't-think-they-should-have-to parasites who do nothing but clamour for more and more goodies that "the rich" (i.e., anyone who earns more than they do) must pay for. So now they want...

Today on the news I saw yet another white man charged with a hate crime for having killed someone of another race. The victim was Hispanic. I'm wondering... are all hate crime charges leveled at whites? If so, doesn't this create an unequal-before-the law situation that is even more unconstitutional than the original concern of protected minorities having more rights than others? I mean... it sounds like hate crime legislation is actually targetting one group. Were those muslims who shot the allegedly gay man with a BB gun charged with hate crimes? Was the black gang who tortured and murdered...

Okay, let's pretend that there really was a racist Tea-Partier throwing around verbal abuse at one of the rallies. There's no proof that I've seen yet. Video cameras all over the place, but not one that can produce any such thing, but liberals have declared it to be so, therefore it must be so. Why, it's as certain as if it were reported by BBC and NPR both together! (And these are not sources to be questioned!) So the question is, what does it mean?According to the liberal world, it means that the underlying, barely hidden foundation of conservatism is,...

Freepers, I just had a thought, and I wanted to record it before it died of loneliness. Perhaps this has already been addressed, but it just occurred to me in a flash of light while watching an old All In The Family episode on YouTube.Here's the single little lightbulb that just went on over my head: It was the gun control episode, and Meathead is pointing out to Archie that the part of the 2nd amendment that reads "a well-regulated militia as being necessary to the security of a free State..." Meathead's point, and it's the point that has been...

I have just seen The Day the Earth Stood Still, with Keanu Reeves and some skinny chick. Three warnings before we continue: 1) I never saw the original, so this isn't going to be a comparative essay. 2) I will forgive Keanu anything (it's a female thing). and 3) I'm writing this for those of you who wouldn't go see this at gunpoint, so that you can still make fun of it anyway. In other words, there will be spoilers. If there's any chance you're going to see this and want some tiny iota of suspense left (ha) then run...

As of right now, my humble advice to young conservatives is this: Don't go into the military. We don't know how Obama will use you. Chances are, you'll end up in areas not protecting our security or US interests, but fighting and dying in feel-good missions at the behest of the Murthas and Bidens of the world. Somalia. Rwanda. Who knows where. You'll also run the risk of falling under UN command, and being handed over to international courts. If you want to serve this country in a manner that will best benefit yourself and those you love, consider the...

Last year I let a family member move in with me. I’ll call her my niece. My niece was down on her luck and needed a place to stay while she got on her feet. As it turns out, she was actually down with drugs and needed a place to lie on the couch while she got on the phone. But anyway. I came home one day and was looking for my iron, so I could iron clothes to wear to work. (“Work is that place you go to,” I explained to her, “and they pay you to do things...

In the teacher's lounge the other day (deep in the belly of the beast) a fellow teacher (wearing a Social Justice t-shirt, of course) turned to me and, knowing I was the only Republican at the table, asked me a question."As a woman, how can you vote for Sarah Palin? She'll roll back feminism 20 years."Twenty? I thought. Let me get back to that. Here's what I say to anyone who wants to mention Sarah Palin and feminism in the same breath:So you say you're a feminist. And you don't like Palin. Whom do you like better? Michelle Obama? Hillary...

I was just on a website reviewing the various proposals that Californians will be voting for next month, and I clicked on their "President" link. Lo and behold, I see that after Obama and McCain, the next name that will actually appear on the ticket is Alan Keyes, running as an American Independent.I think he's a little extreme, but I'm considering casting a protest vote for him, if only to send the message "I am not happy with our current GOP choice." Now, before you tell me I'm throwing my vote away, consider: I live in California, land of fruit...

A Democrat walks into a bar at the airport and sees a very attractive, professional looking woman seated there, having a drink. He sits down next to her and surreptitiously slides off his wedding ring. "Hey there," he says, ordering a drink. "You look like you're traveling on business." "Yes," she says. "Well, kind of. I used to run a business, but now I'm in the public sector." "That's impressive," says the Democrat. "You know, I really respect that. I always said that women were more capable than most men. You can run businesses, run for office, do anything a...

Because I am addicted to arguing, I sometimes stray from Free Republic to go lock horns with liberals in their haunts. I don't go to DU, they delete you the minute they sense your shadow casting its blue shade across their tofu. I go to IMDb, where everyone roams free. The Obamites hold forth endlessly about how Bush has crippled women's sexual freedom. Any restriction on abortion, you see, cripples women's sexual freedom. How can anyone get laid if you can't have RU-486 via drive-thru?Now, I'm not really particularly interested in the abortion issue. I used to care, and was...

<p>What exactly do they think Obama will do? End war? Well, no, he's said recently that he'd intensify our involvement in Afghanistan... and now he's talking smack about Pakistan!</p>
<p>Even Bush didn't talk smack about Pakistan.</p>
<p>Will he change the world? Well, they think he will, though he didn't even change Chicago, and he had plenty of chances.</p>

I've just seen The Wanted, and now I'm going to review it. There will be spoilers, although it's hard to spoil a movie that is already so mediocre. I went in knowing nothing other than that Angelina Jolie was in it, and it was about some nerdy young man finding out he was very special and had secret powers, and it was his destiny to fulfill them. Does that sound terribly familiar?.Sure enough, it starts out with a nerdy young man in an office. Our erstwhile Neo is approached by a Trinity-like vixen who drags him through a wild chase...

There is no place like Free Republic for getting answers, so here goes. I'm arguing away on another site about how Bush said we should drill ANWR six years ago, but the Democrats stopped us. Then someone asked, since the GOP controlled the House and Senate in 2002... how did the Dems stop us?And I realized I did not know the answer. How DID they stop us? Does anyone know?

The Democrats have been saying for some time that Barack Obama will restore our reputation in the eyes of the world, and I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what went wrong in the first place. The world hates us. We know this, because our own media inform us of it regularly through polls, editorials, and documentaries. Because of our actions, our policies, over the years, we have built up a reservoir of resentment worldwide that only Obama can sooth. You know, I think they are right. Let's look at the sins we've committed with an eye...

Egyptian actor Omar Sharif — best known for his film roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago — reportedly blasted U.S. policy in Iraq and said Americans are ignorant. According to The Middle East Media Research Institute, Sharif said the "East" will never have a democracy because people like him "prefer to go to the neighborhood sheik." MEMRI —a Middle Eastern press monitoring organization — posted an interview of Sharif that aired on the Al-Hayat TV network. "I lived in America for a long time. Only 10% of all Americans have a passport. In other words, 90% never left...

“Is 40 really the New 20?” asks Fox News, reviewing the Sex And The City hoopla that seemed to overwhelm everyone this weekend. “Pop culture expert and Party Girl author Anna David joins us to weigh in on the phenomenon…” And the burning question is, what do you make of this revolutionary idea that a woman can be single in her 30s, 40s, even 50s, and it’s not shameful, it’s fantastic? Interesting. Let’s explore this revolutionary idea. How did Sex And The City make it okay to be single? After Anna David addresses how threatening this idea is to men—it...

Hollywood's gone green — or so everybody says. Whether they're driving hybrid cars, shunning bottled water or making do with just one square of toilet paper, A-listers from Natalie Portman to Brad Pitt are joining the eco-chic bandwagon. But who's really green, and who's just an imposter?Laurie David, producer of Al Gore's Oscar-winning global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and estranged wife of actor/writer Larry David, has become one of the most widely known environmental activists. But Jackie Mendez-Diez, David's neighbor in celeb-popular Martha's Vineyard, Mass., told FOXNews.com she's a hypocrite. "I normally wouldn't care, it would just be between...

Always read to the end of the report; that’s where the good stuff is. Case in point an obscure little stat was released on Friday with the not-quite-tantalizing title “Agricultural Prices”. Tables and tables of words with numbers after them – soybeans, price per bushel – wheat, percentage change year over year – imported fruits…exported nuts…you get the idea. If you do the shopping for your family as I do (don’t snicker, I also chop down trees and bench 300), you’re probably not surprised to find out that agricultural prices rose quite rapidly in May. In fact the monthly price...

I’ve just seen Sex and the City and now I’m going to review it. There will be spoilers. If you’re still waiting with baited breath to see this movie (a description that I doubt applies to many Freepers) don’t read any further unless you’ve already guessed that it’s going to be pretty much like a Jane Austen story but with gratuitous sex scenes, designer clothes, and a plethora of clichéd observations about life and love. In other words, a happy ending, and no one dies. I should say right away, I was expecting someone to die because I’d overheard a...

Just for fun, tell me who you think would win? Thunderdome. Hillary v. Obama. Two go in; one comes out.Honestly, I think Hillary would win. Yes, Obama is younger, stronger, bigger, and male. But he'd stroll in, hands in his pockets, condescending little smile on his face and say, "Now look, let's not be--"And she'd let out some bloodcurdling screech and with one Kill-Bill-like move, rip his heart out. That's just my call.But maybe I'm wrong, maybe she'd try to play the woman card and find out just exactly how he feels about women in general. I don't know. What...

Actress Cate Blanchett and 40 others have come forward to support photographer, Bill Henson, after Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, hinted that possible criminal charges await Henson, whose latest exhibit was shut down due to images of naked underage girls. More than 20 pictures were confiscated, including one featuring a naked 13 year old girl and one of a naked, unconscious girl being carried by two other naked subjects. In a letter signed by Blanchett (mother of three), the Prime Minister is urged to "rethink his public comments" and to not go forward with any formal charges. The Daily Telegraph...

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida school board member is drawing fire from some parents for saying they should spend money on school clothes for their children instead of buying alcohol and cigarettes. School board member Jay Wheeler's comments were made in an e-mail response to parents’ complaints that they cannot afford the new uniforms mandated by the Osceola County School District, according to MyFOXOrlando.com. "Everyone can afford Wal-Mart and if they can’t, they need to think about turning off their cable TV or stop buying alcohol or cigarettes and spend their money on their children," he wrote. Parent Maria...

Perhaps I'm just not that good at it. It's only my fourth year. They say it takes practice.I am standing at the door of my classroom. It is 7:24am in Los Angeles, and my homeroom students are trickling in listlessly. "Good morning. Please get your book out." I say to each group as they wander in. "Good morning, please get your book out. Good morning, please get your book out."I say it about 10 times. It is school policy to use the 20 minutes of homeroom for silent reading, to set the right tone for a day of schoolwork, and...

If a woman finds that the kind and considerate man she has lived with for years suddenly stops helping with the washing and bridles at taking out the rubbish, it is probably because the couple have got married. Academics have found cohabiting couples are far more likely than those who are married to split housework evenly — but after the wedding they revert to stereotype, with the woman taking on the great majority of tasks. The study argues that the effect holds true even in couples with a strongly egalitarian outlook before they are married, at which point women become...

I suppose it’s not good form to review a movie you haven’t actually watched all the way through, but my mind kept shying away in disgust throughout the painful chick-flick “Because I Said So.” My little sister was watching it this afternoon, and I was her hostage. Boy, this movie is where the screw meets the ball. This movie is where the corn meets the flake. This is movie Hell. This type of movie is to female dignity what Madonna is to virtue. Women have no dignity in these “madcap” chick flicks. They are flakey, flighty, dithering, disorganized, airheaded, hysterical...

My friends, my sister, and I were hanging out at a gay bar in West Hollywood last night (yes, really) because you can buy $1 draft beers during happy hour, and my little sister can flirt with men who won't actually try to take her home. She just moved out to Hollywood to live with me and, being only 29, she still likes to party. I'm the over-protective type, so I go with her and glower at anyone who gets too close.Because it was a gay bar, all the men I met there were... oh, what's the word... gay, yes,...

I have just finished reading a Ben Stein column about the recent SOTU adress. It started out very well, but then took what seemed to me an odd turn: Stein, along with several other conservative pundits, has come to the conclusion that the war in Iraq was just a big, huge mistake. I've been hearing this with increasing frequency, from people I did not expect to hear it from. Bill O'Reilly, Francis Fukuyama... even Charles Krauthammer sounds disenchanted. Here is my question: When did everyone decide to agree that the war in Iraq was a mistake? I still don't think...

It is rare that a movie affects me so profoundly that I feel compelled to write about it, but Nancy Meyers' "The Holiday," starring Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, and Jack Black, is just such a movie: It is so bad it drove me from the theater before it was even finished. I pride myself on sitting through to the bitter end during even the most ridiculous movies. It's how I got through What Dreams May Come, with clenched teeth and steely determination. But pride goeth before an evacuation, and after one hour and forty minutes, my friend and...

I just sat in the teacher's lounge of my middle school and listened to my fellow teachers hold forth about President Bush, the war in Iraq, and politics in general. Naturally they all agree that Bush is evil, the anti-christ, a religious fanatic, well not really a true religious fanatic, but a phony pretending to be one, actually an evil schemer who started the war to allow Halliburton to steal the oil, but really a simpleton who thought he could bring democracy to a culture that is incompatible with democracy, well they are but it will take a long time...